On this episode of Our American Stories, Ian Rowe grew up in a Jamaican immigrant family that believed deeply in education, hard work, and the promise of America. So when his Queens junior high school rapidly became all black after white families pulled their children out, his parents assumed the better opportunity lay elsewhere.
But twelve-year-old Ian disagreed, and refused to accept the idea that a school automatically became worse simply because the white students had left. For our series with Philanthropy Roundtable, Ian shares the story of his radical decision that shaped and transformed his life for the better.
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